The training at Grafton Camp prior to the IMO was very useful in learning mathematics that one does not get much chance to learn in secondary school, and I am very grateful for this opportunity. Afterwards, there was a flight to Germany for acclimatization and some mock tests. In this lead-up to the IMO, it wasn’t just mathematics that we continued to learn.
This year was my second attempt at making the New Zealand Maths Olympiad team, and this time I was fortunate enough to be selected for the team to travel to Ljubljana, Slovenia, to compete in the 47th International Mathematical Olympiad.
In July of this year, I, along with five other secondary school students from around New Zealand, had the amazing opportunity to travel to Athens, Greece to compete in the 45th International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO) along with over 500 students from 85 countries from around the world. But before the competition began, we, the New Zealand team, spent a week on the beautiful island of Paros, to acclimatise to the heat, relax on the beach,…and soak up some of the Greek lifestyle!
In reality the trip did not start in July, but rather back in January at the annual NZIMO training camp. The camp proceeded as normal, except for one difference: All of the previous year’s IMO team had left school and gone on to university. This meant that I would have a shot at getting into the team, as this left 6 open places (well in reality 4 since the reserves from last year were pretty much guaranteed entry). However Arkadii Slinko decided to do things slightly different, in that unlike usual where the team is announced at the camp, he decided to select an intermediate squad before he would announce the final team in April. Well I was selected and that was great and all, but so were 10 out of 18 or so at the camp. The follow on effect of this was that we had to work harder than usual during the coming months to assure our place on the team.
The International Mathematical Olympiad is a worldwide maths competition, held annually in different places around the world. Students of secondary school age from over 80 countries travel together to pit their skills against 400 other competitors in one of the most prestigious competitions in the world. The IMO grew out of a Russian maths competition, starting with the Warsaw Pact countries in 1960 and steadily expanding as other countries joined. Each year the host country can invite new participants, so New Zealand started in 1988 at the invitation of Australia. This year the 45th IMO was held in Athens, Greece, in July, and I was lucky enough to be selected in the New Zealand team competing in the event.
My journey to the 2004 International Mathematical Olympiad began two and a half years earlier, the summer after my third-form year, when I attended my first NZMOC January camp. In one of the most influential weeks of my life so far, I caught a glimpse of what the NZ Maths Olympiad program could offer me: challenge, competition, glory, beautiful mathematics, lifelong friendships, and of course the obvious reward of a trip to an exciting and faraway place in a few years if I worked hard enough in the meantime. Within a few days I was hooked; by the end of the week I had set my goals. I would return to camp the next year, 2003, and be picked as a reserve for New Zealand’s IMO team that year. In 2004, with two years’ experience behind me, I would be good enough to make the team proper, and maybe as a seventh-former in 2005 I could win a medal.